Eat Your Wallet

The Boston Globe’s Scott Haas has a bone to pick with Boston-area restaurateurs: the $40 entrée.

In “Raw Deal,” he looks into the provenance of some of the meats that are hitting the ceiling of restaurant prices. What he finds when he investigates Rialto’s $43 steak may surprise you: The meat comes from the rustic-sounding Pineland Farms Natural Meats, which is not an actual family farm but a conglomeration of more than 150 of them. The meat is advertised as “grass-fed,” but it’s finished with 150 days of grain. Most shocking of all for a $43 steak: It isn’t even Prime grade, but Choice.

I think they’re charging high prices because they can—serving food to people who are grateful to have what they consider big city food. I think what’s going on in Boston is a classic example of chefs working in a place that’s not yet a national restaurant city, not by a stretch. … And I can really understand why the chefs are charging so much: If prices come down, they lose their mystique as chefs. They’re reluctant to abandon their pomposity, expense, and pretense.

But it’s not really a surprise to see entrées in Boston so high. After all, as USA Todaynotes, “When it comes to entree prices at restaurants across the nation, 40 really is the new 30.”